Open floorplans are wildly popular, but do we need to revisit the closed-off kitchen?
According to a recent New York Times article, the closed-off singular kitchen is making a comeback. These 4-walled cooking sanctuaries have gone out of fashion for the most part, and been replaced with those airy, open floor-plans that have taken over most home designs over the past 20 years. But why the sudden throw-back to pre-war kitchen and dining trends? Well, there’s something to be said about nostalgia – a longing for childhood homes where mom or dad cooked meals and presented food in a designated dining area and family meals were formal, sit-down events.
Citi Habitats Broker George Case told The New York Times, “so much new construction features open floor plans that there’s a pent-up desire for apartments with separate dining rooms and kitchen.”
Cozy kitchens with only one entrance may no longer be a thing of the past.
With today’s fast-paced lifestyle, an open-concept home provides the benefit of one-stop spaces for cooking, eating, and conversing all at once. However, those preferences may be waning with the growing resurgence of separate kitchens and formal dining rooms in new constructions.
Home-buyers point to a variety of factors for choosing to close-off their cooking spaces, including the noise and smell, and the dirty dishes factor: “People appreciate a separate space, especially when it comes to cleaning up, and the benefits are both visual and aural. You don’t see what’s going on, and you don’t hear the clanking of pots and pans,” Macklowe architecture and design director Lila Smith tells The New York Times.
It seems that a particular demographic of people really do want those boundaries back. It deliniates “your” space from your guests’ space, and provides a quiet retreat for cooking in private. A recent Slate article by J. Bryan Lowder explains a lot of buyer’s frustrations about open-concept kitchens:
“In fact, having one’s kitchen quite separate from the dining and lounging areas (as mine is) brings with it a host of benefits. For one thing, no matter how careful your mise en place, cooking requires some amount of mess-making…I have never known a skilled home cook who could engage in sparkling conversation while also properly attending to his work. “
We can’t all be star chefs in our home kitchens.
However, there is a middle-ground in the closed vs. open kitchen wars. For those of you who don’t want to commit to the tight boundaries of a designated kitchen, you can consider pocket doors instead of walls that slide open or closed depending on what kind of environment you’re establishing that day. It’s a good compromise that keeps spaces versatile and easy to transform.
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